After
by runawaysoultrain
Summary: The seven days after Rose were the worst. They filled him with an unimaginable pain he had never even begun to know... Cal's story after Rose and after everythig his heart had ever known. A one-shot.


**A/N: Hello! Here's a little one-shot idea I've had for awhile. The seven days after Rose's "death" for Cal. I was in a dark-ish mood today, and I realzied I had had his lying around, so I decided I'd polish her up and now here it is for your reading enjoyment! Reviews/comments/etc. are always treated with tender love and care (:**

 **WARNING: This piece is quite morbid, and it does cotain a few religious references. So, be prepared for that.**

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 **After**

The number seven echoed throughtout his mind. It was the seventh day. It had been a week. 168 hours, 1440 minutes...8460 seconds...  
It had been a week since his life had changed, a week since he lost it all...A week since the remaining fragements of his heart had shattered, leaving a hollow and dark soul. Nothing.

His body was a barren and scorched battlefield.

Cal was tired. And he knew it. He was tired of living, tired of making promises to himself he could never fulfill with all the money in the world...Tired of having a weight on his back, his unhealable wound, the scars of his past...

He just sighed and buried his face into his pillow. After a week, he was surprised he still had tears left to cry. He hadn't cried in years...And in the beginning, it had felt good for his body to rack with sobs...It was satisfying to look in the mirror and see his dark eyes puffy with sorrow and emptiness...  
Now, his ribs were sore and his face was an unclean mess.  
Now it all felt more like a curse. Cal was trapped in a never-ending nightmare, and he, was the monster...

Six. The devil's number. It seemed to Cal that the man downstairs had been too kind to him over the years. He just laughed bitterly and downed yet another glass of brandy. The amber poison stung the back of his throat and it brought tears to his eyes.

He reached for his decanter to fill it with another shot, but he found it was empty. His head began to pound with frustration and something inside of him snapped.

Before he could control his anger, Cal hurled the decanter at the wall, shattering it to a million crystal specs. It had been a family heirloom, from his great-grandfather _. It seems another black eye is in order..._ Cal thought to himself bitterly, dreading his father's next visit...  
The Devil had just been too kind...

Five times. Actually more than five times that fifth day people had come to his door, hollow knocks echoing through the solemn halls. Cal had just dismissed them, their black veils, and their meaningless condolences. After about the seventh time, the maids stopped coming to Cal's room and relaying the morbid messages.

Cal would just have the same reaction.

He would yell at them, his voice full of poison, screeching at them to get out before his throat turned raw.

There was so much anger. Red was all he saw. Red was the color of the flames of Hell. The color of Rose's pefect hair...  
That stupid gutter rat had killed her! Slaughtered her with his "love" for her! Rose would've been his wife...Someone for Cal to finally love, someone he could open up to without being pushed away...  
But now she was gone. And so was that filth.  
Cal silently hoped that Dawson was proud for what he had done.

During the four hour train ride back to Pittsburgh, Cal couldn't fall asleep. He didn't want to close his eyes and see those images in his mind...

The empty casket being lowered into the wet ground, Ruth crying at the loss of her only, dear child...

And he couldn't bear to think of himself either. The tears hadn't stopped rolling down his cheeks. And too many people had seen. It seemed Caledon Hockley, did indeed, have a heart.

And Cal didn't like that. He just wished he could rip out the thing that was keeping him alive. Keeping him feeling the pain.

The fourth day had been too long.

Only he knew that the casket was empty. Everyone else was weeping over a body that wasn't there. A Rose that no longer existed, but instead was floating in the depths of the bitter sea, surrounded by crushed hopes and dreams.  
It shouldn't have brought Cal joy to chuckle under his breath of the naivety of everyone else who thought they were just as powerful as him...

But it did.

It helped him get rid of the pain. But just for a second. And for a second, he felt as if he could breathe again, as if a giant weight of guilt had been lifted off of his shoulders. But then it was back. His lungs clogged and his heart black...Unable to breathe or feel anything.  
Cal took one last glance of the hollow coffin, one last shovel of dirt, fully burying with the Earth.

 _And on the third day, He rose again..._  
 _Not this time_ , he chuckled to himself. The oxygen felt good for the little while that it lasted.

The voices were the ones that woke him. The ones that made him scream and cry until no sound was able to come from his mouth...  
 _Open your heart to me..._  
 _You never loved her..._  
 _You unimaginable bastard..._  
It was all his fault. His fault that his Rose was gone. His fault that she was simply another unnamed corpse in the middle of the Atlantic...Just another frozen face...  
If only he hadn't let his jealousy blind him, not make him see her true suffering...  
If only he hadn't let Dawson get his hands on her, let him hold her in his arms...  
Rose would've been saved, she would've been with Cal now, lying next to him as he stroked her hair, telling her how beautiful she was...  
But now, she was just another frozen face. No one to tell her how unseemingly perfect she was...  
Because she wasn't. Not anymore. Two days could do alot to a person.

He couldn't believe that she was gone...  
Gone from this world to never be seen again by anyone...  
Cal scanned the list again as the sun began to rise, warming his numb limbs.

She had to be there.

 _Daniels, Daley, Dawson, Debecky.._.

But no DeWitt Bukater...

Cal re-read the list over and over, until his eyes were blurry and unfocused...SHE HAD TO BE THERE!

Because he couldn't live without her...

Rose had saved him, changed him...Cal hadn't opened up to anyone...ever.

From a young age, his father drilled into him like a soldier that feelings made you weak. They made you crumble into a thousand, little pieces. His father had been right. Cal was falling apart like bad glue on a get-well card...

His heart was shriveling into nothing and a deep, empty void seemed to consume him from the inside out. And it hit him, hard and strong, as if he had been knocked over the head with a shovel.

Rose _WAS_ gone.

And she wasn't coming back.

There weren't going to be any more mornings where right before Cal left for work, Rose straightened his tie and kissed his cheek good-bye. There weren't going to be any more nights where it was completely silent at dinner and it was perfectly okay because Rose was sitting right next to him...There weren't going to be any more nights where Cal walked past the library on his way to bed and he still saw Rose there, in the shillouette of the firelight, pouring over book after book, her auburn curls falling gracefully in her face...

There weren't going to be any more anythings...

There was no light in Cal's life anymore and the only option was to retreat back into himslef...Back into the darkness and grief he had always and only known.

It was going to be an infinity before he saw his perfect angel again. And he would wait. Heaven was a better place now that its creation had returned.

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 **Yea, I read it too... It is a bit sad, isn't it? But hey, I did try to give it a "happy ending". Give me credit for that :P**

 **Anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed! (or possibly cried...?) Reviews are always accepted ad appreciated (:**


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